Over a decade into the US-led occupation of Afghanistan with no end in sight, and with officials quietly negotiating to keep US ground troops in the nation for another 14 years, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta informed the troops that “we’re winning.”
Exactly what they’re winning isn’t clear, and when asked at a news conference later Panetta said the large size of the Afghan national army was evidence of his claim, adding that the Taliban had gotten weaker over the course of a decade of fighting.
“As always, we have not won, we have not completed this mission,” added Panetta, without indicating exactly what “this mission” is. Throughout the rest of his comments he never again uttered the phrase “we’re winning.”
When pressed by a soldier on whether the US “win” might mean leaving and returning a decade later, Panetta answered that the US would be supporting Karzai “long after the end of 2014.” The comment, as always, did not publicly mention the talks to keep troops in the nation for a decade beyond that date.
what are we winning?
The eighth US soldier to die in December was reported by the DOD today. A US army soldier was killed by small arms fire in Logar province on Tuesday, December 13. Four hundred US soldiers have died this year winning the war in Afghanistan.
The ninth US soldier was reported killed in Afghanistan so far in December. A US Marine died yesterday in Helmand province, the fifth soldier to die in five days.
Mr panetta we got our asses broke in Vietnam ,Iraq and now Afganistan and all we managed to do was to murder millions and destroy each country in turn so mr P your ass is sucking air.
We're winning, like Charlie Sheen is.
The American Empire is about as close to ""winning" in Afghanistan as the former Soviet Empire and the ex-British Empire ever were.
The entire chain of command from Obama and Panetta down to the lowest levels of leadership and command should be mandated to read Peter Tomsen's THE WARS OF AFGHANISTAN: Messianic Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts, and The Failures of Great Powers, before claiming that "victory" is inevitable, or was ever even remotely possible.
See "Invading Afghanistan, Then and Now; What Washington should learn from wars past" at: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/68214/jona…
"'As the result of two successful campaigns, of the employment of an enormous force, and of the expenditures of large sums of money," the secretary of state observed, "all that has yet been accomplished has been the disintegration of the State . . . and a condition of anarchy throughout the remainder of the country." A highly decorated general, recently returned from service in Kandahar, concluded, 'I feel sure that I am right when I say that the less the Afghans see of us the less they will dislike us.'
"The politician was Spencer Cavendish, Marquis of Hartington, the British secretary of state for India. The general was Sir Frederick Roberts, who eventually became a field marshal and the subject of three ballads by Rudyard Kipling. The year was 1880.
"As Obama tries to wind down the longest war in U.S. history, while leaving behind some measure of stability, he would be wise to keep in mind this bitter truth: most of Afghanistan's would-be conquerors make the same mistakes, and most eventually meet the same disastrous fate." — Invading Afghanistan
Hey Leon? You are a dumb ass.
The top Australian field commander in Afghanistan said last summer that the Taliban have overwhelmed foreign troops and cannot be defeated by military means.
The top commander of Australian ground forces in Afghanistan said recently that foreign forces in Afghanistan have been overwhelmed by the Taliban and cannot be defeated by military means.